How do you choose the right domain name registrar? The good news is that, for the most part, registrars are just about equal in terms of providing adequate administration of domain names. Customer service and pricing are usually the main differentiating factors.

Most registrars now provide plenty of add-on services such as web hosting, email, privacy, and marketing. Since it is rare that you will ever need to order all those different types of services, you should plan your site and get a good feel for just exactly which services you will actually need, such as SSL to handle ecommerce transactions or some of the services outlined below.

Needed Services

Some registrars may support certain TLDs to a greater extent than other registrars do; Dotster has been a serious supporter of the .tel domain for example. Otherwise, here are some areas where it may make a difference which registrar you choose.

Bulk Checkers. These software programs allowing you to check the availability of a long list of potential domain names. Godaddy has a good bulk checker, but then again so do Fabulous and Moniker to name a few more.

301 redirect. The 301 permanent redirect is useful for pointing a domain to another site. This may not be a big deal if you are developing a site around the domain, but if you are parking the domain then it’s good to have choice of using either 302 or 301 redirects when needed.

Ease of Use. As highly functional as Godaddy’s software is, using the system has become quite cumbersome due to slow load times and screens with massive amounts of obtrusive advertising. Whichever registrar you pick , you should feel comfortable using that registrar’s system.

The Best Domain Name Registrar

In my case it was Godaddy. They are competitively priced, offer private registration services and 301 redirects, and a decent bulk checker. The system can be slow sometimes (usually on the weekends for me) but they have not disappointed me yet with any mistakes or anything.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 12:52 am and is filed under Domain Name Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.